by Mark Dawson
Billy wound down his window.
“What’s your business, sir?” the guard asked.
“Moving surplus goods.”
“Where are your papers?”
“Here.” Billy handed down the requisition form that Butler had faked for them.
The soldier squinted at it dubiously. “What are you here for? It don’t say.”
“Surplus goods.” Billy’s tone was brusque.
“For who?”
Edward leaned across the cab. “Major Butler,” he said.
“Butler?” The man was doubtful. “No-one’s mentioned it to me.”
Edward started to get very nervous indeed. They were vulnerable. The other two trucks had pulled off the road and were parked behind them, pinning them against the gate. There were another two men in the guardhouse and he knew each of them would have a Lee Enfield. If the sentry didn’t believe their story, there would be nothing for it. Their truck certainly wasn’t going anywhere.
They were helpless.
Edward leant over again. “Why don’t you speak with him?” he suggested brightly. “Get him on the phone.”
As he spoke, Billy reached into the bag by his side. In the corner of his eye Edward watched as he started to withdraw the butt of a Webley revolver. There was nothing he could say without alerting the soldier’s attention so he reached across the seat and rested his hand across Billy’s, gently holding it against the bag.
The guard returned the credentials. “I haven’t heard about nothing getting moved but that’d be par for the course. They don’t tell us nothing. Sorry to keep you waiting, chaps––it all looks in order. Do you know where you’re going?” Edward did, but he allowed the guard to provide directions. “On your way, then,” he said when he was finished. He lifted the gate for them. Edward hurriedly put the truck into gear and motored through before the man could change his mind. The others followed close behind.
“What the hell is that?” he muttered tightly.
Billy slipped the gun back into his bag. He smirked at Edward’s dismay, calmly fastening the bag again. “Shooter. What’s it look like?”
“No-one said anything about guns.”
“You never know, do you?––looked like we might need it for a moment.”
“What are you talking about?
“Tight spot, could’ve been important.”
Edward was incredulous. “You were going to shoot him? How long do you think we would’ve lasted? This is an army base, you bloody fool. It’s full of soldiers.”
“Calm down,” he said in a gloating tone. “We’re inside now, aren’t we? No need to panic.”
His tone was patronising, the way you would talk to a child. Edward clenched his jaw, refusing to look at him for fear of further losing his temper. “I’m not panicking,” he said.
Billy saw how much he had rattled him and didn’t let up. “I knew you was milky,” he leered. “I bloody well knew it. The first sign of trouble and you’re all over the bloody shop. What the hell Joe was thinking getting you involved, God only knows.”
Edward turned away from him. He was sweating and shaking. For a moment he heard his voice denying that he was scared but then he realised that he hadn’t spoken, that the words were like a phonograph playing in his head, and that Billy was looking out of the window again, carelessly, and that he needed to pay more attention to driving the lorry.
He gathered himself. The private’s directions took them along the main road through the base. Edward had been there before but the place was larger than he remembered. It had been a small staging post for two or three thousand men when he had passed through on the way to India, seven years earlier. It had grown out of all proportion since then and fifteen thousand Americans had been stationed there during the preparations for D-Day. Nissen and Maycrete huts were arranged in neat rows, radiating out from a central hub. The accommodation was arranged end-to-end, prefabricated corrugated iron walls and asbestos roofs. The Americans had built basketball courts and a baseball diamond and advertisements for Lucky Strike cigarettes and Oreo cookies could still be found in the windows of the stores. He imagined that the United States must look like this.
Butler was waiting for them on the hard-standing outside the administration block.
“What did he want on the gate?” Joseph said to Edward once they had parked.
“They didn’t know we were coming.”
Butler shook his head. “What?”
“They had no idea.”
“I told them––”
“Never mind,” Edward said. “We’re in now. Make sure it’s sorted out next time. Now––where’s the gear.”
“Follow me.”
Butler jumped into a jeep and they trailed him through the quiet base, the huts stretching away in neat, symmetrical lines, hardly a soul about. Butler parked in a space next to the stores and Edward slotted the truck alongside, reversing in to make loading up as easy as possible. The other trucks followed suit.
He switched off the engine, jumped down from the cab and went around to Joseph’s wagon. It would have been better to have it out with him later, when they were safely away, but he couldn’t wait; that, and he was still seething with anger. He took Joseph by the elbow and tugged him around to the back of the truck where they would be shielded from Butler.
“What’s the matter?” Joseph said.
“Billy’s got a gun.”
Joseph put a hand on his arm, trying to calm him down. “It’s just in case.”
“You know?”
“I told him to bring it. We don’t know Butler. We don’t know anything about him. And you never know when you might find yourself in a bind.”
“You didn’t tell me.”
“I didn’t think it was necessary.”
“Not necessary? He was halfway to shooting him!”
“Everything alright?” Billy had followed him over.
“It’s fine, Bubble,” Joseph replied. “Get the truck ready.”
“You sure he’s got the gumption for this, Joe?”
“Go back to the truck.”
“Right you are,” he said, making sure Edward caught his grin.
“You didn’t tell me,” Edward repeated. “You asked me to plan this, and I did. But that only works if I know absolutely everything that’s going on. No surprises. Bringing along a gun was not something on my list. Giving it to Billy makes it worse. You can do that if you want too, but, just so everything is clear between us, you’ll be doing it without me.”
Joseph put his hand on Edward’s shoulder. “Come on, Doc––we’re inside now. Alright? Now’s not the time. There’s plenty to do and we’re going to look like amateurs if he catches us arguing. We can talk about this later. Let’s get cracking. Alright?”
“Fine,” Edward said, far from happy. He stalked back to the truck. The chaps were busy, lowering the flaps at the rear of the vehicles and taking down the pallet-trolleys and loading equipment.
Butler was at the entrance to the nearest store. “You’ve gone the extra mile, haven’t you? Looking the part and all that.”
“Ready to start?” Joseph said to him. “The sooner we get going, the sooner we’ll be out the way.”
“Hold up, men,” Butler said, looking behind them. “Here comes the cavalry.”
A group of six soldiers pulled up in two extra jeeps.
“What’s this?” Edward said warily.
“Thought you could do with some help. They’re good lads. Speed things up a bit.”
“Do they––”
“Not a thing,” Butler said. “As far as they know, this is all as it should be.”
It got worse, Edward thought. He was unhappy with this late addition to the plan but there was nothing for it now but to trust Butler. They swung open the big doors of the nearest store and stood there with their mouths hanging open. The store held twenty or thirty brand new industrial refrigerators. They were stacked two-high and crammed in all the way to the back of the
room. Edward couldn’t help but be impressed. He had never seen a fridge before; only a few businesses could afford them. It was certainly beyond Jimmy’s means at the Shangri-La.
They got cracking. Each refrigerator weighed half a ton. They manhandled them onto the hand-drawn fork-lift and then rolled them out to the trucks. That was the easy part. Loading them into the trucks was much more difficult. It took half a dozen of them to manage it: three to raise one end so that the refrigerator rested on the lip of the truckbed and another three to push, shouldering the big units until they were far enough inside for gravity to make the rest of the job a little easier. The Bedfords were large enough to manage five units each. It took them two hours to load all fifteen. By the time they were finished, the suspensions sagged heavily and they were drenched in sweat.
“Your pal in Barry’s expecting us, then?” Joseph asked Butler after he had dismissed the other soldiers.
“You won’t have a problem.”
“You said that before.”
“I’ll call ahead to make sure. Have you arranged buyers?”
“Don’t worry about that,” Joseph said brusquely. “You just leave it to me.”
“When can I expect to be paid?”
“Later.”
“When?”
Joseph smiled tightly. “You get your cut right at the end, pal, once everyone else has been sorted. You just do as you’re told and be patient, and everything will turn out just fine.”
41
THEY SET OFF AGAIN. Edward had been ready to refuse to ride with Billy but Joseph had rearranged the order before he could complain, taking Billy off his hands so that he could drive alone. That suited Edward perfectly well. The prospect of spending more time with him was almost more than he could bear and he was quite content to use the time thinking about how the day had gone and how it could be improved. Getting Bubble out of the way would be a good place to start, he thought. He settled behind the wheel and wondered how that might be done.
The journey from Honeybourne to Barry took another three hours. They headed west towards Gloucester and turned south at Cinderford, following the coastline the rest of the way. It was a pleasant ride and Edward found that the scenery lifted his mood. The truck was sluggish because of the heavy load in the back and he had to concentrate, nudging the wheel back to the centre and correcting the small errors in the handling. Joseph led the way, scrupulously observing the rules of the road, maintaining a steady forty miles an hour. Edward had laboured the point that good driving was essential. It was important to avoid the attention of the police. The last thing they needed was to be pulled over with a haul of moody goods. Major Butler had given them transfer notices for the refrigerators but Edward did not think that they would stand up to much scrutiny. The paper trail would eventually lead back to Butler and he was not the sort of fellow to make one feel confident about things.
They arrived a little after seven. The base at Barry was smaller than Honeybourne. Butler’s contact was an officious captain named Williams. He had remembered to tell the guardhouse that they were coming and this time they passed inside without a hitch. They parked up at an empty warehouse and got to work again. There was no help this time and so they unloaded the trucks themselves. The fridges seemed twice as heavy now and it took two hours to lower them from the trucks and transfer them to the stores. By the time they were finished it was after nine. They had already driven over two hundred miles and they were all dog tired. Edward had been fighting heavy eyelids for the last half an hour of the drive and now all he could think about was a pint, something to eat and bed. Joseph evidently felt the same way and suggested a change of plan: rather than attempting the return trip to London they should find somewhere to stay overnight instead. They could have a meal and a drink and make an early start in the morning. No-one objected.
Edward remembered a roadside inn that they had passed outside Gloucester and led the way north again, pulling into an empty car park next to the hotel. Petrol was still rationed and the days of going out for leisurely drives were long gone. Businesses like this struggled to stay afloat without passing trade and the proprietor gladly welcomed them when they asked whether he had any vacancies. They took four rooms: two doubles and two singles. Edward was thankful for the peace and quiet of one of the singles, and, stripping out of his overalls, he soothed his muscles in the tub.
When he awoke an hour and a half had passed. Feeling partially refreshed, he dressed and went down to the dining room. He needed a beer and something to eat. The others were already there and the empty pint pots on the table suggested that they had made a start without him.
“Perfect timing,” Joseph said, nodding at the empties. Edward ordered beers from the bar and passed them round. He sat down in the spare seat, Billy to his left and Joseph to his right. There was a strange atmosphere around the table, a mixture of relief and fatigue. There was an edge of hysteria to it, too, a manic quality that was exacerbated by the alcohol. They had been up early, on edge all day and all of them were tired. They were living off nervous energy.
“Well done, chaps,” Joseph said, holding up his pint. “A good day’s work.”
Edward couldn’t disagree with that. They all touched glasses and he drank off half of his beer in one thirsty gulp. It felt good, so he finished the rest and got another.
“How long are we going to leave the fridges down there?” Jack McVitie was asking when Edward returned to the table.
Joseph deferred to Edward. “A week should do it,” he said. “Plenty of time to make sure it’s safe. We’ll leave earlier next time––pick up another load, drop it off and take the fridges back with us. It’ll be easier. We’ll know what we’re doing. We’ll have a routine.”
Joseph had already ordered the food––gammon and chips five times––and the proprietor appeared with the plates, setting them down on the table. The smell reminded Edward how famished he was. They ate in silence for five minutes, shovelling the food into empty stomachs, in the meantime finishing their pints and ordering replacements.
“I needed that,” Tommy said with a satisfied pat of his belly as he handed around a packet of Lucky Strikes he had taken from the store at Honeybourne. Edward took a cigarette and lit up.
“Remember the Lucky Strikes in Calcutta?” Joseph said to him, drawing deeply on the fag. “Remember that, Doc? Playing poker with that Yank corporal?” Edward laughed at the memory and Joseph explained: “There was this American soldier we met in Calcutta. This was the night I met Doc––he’d just got his arse kicked, as I remember.”
“I don’t remember it like that at all,” Edward chuckled.
“We got falling down drunk and ended up persuading this Yank to play poker. He told us he was an expert.”
“He was completely boozed,” Edward said. “By the end of the game Joseph had gulled him out of an entire evening’s worth of drinks for us both, six packets of US army issue Lucky Strikes and a quart of rum.”
The others laughed, all except Billy.
“You two must have got up to all sorts,” Tommy Falco said.
Billy deliberately hurled a derisory sneer at Edward. “He was talking about all that in the truck earlier,” he said. “Burma and so forth. I was trying to get him to tell me about shooting all those Nips, the ones he said he topped to get his medal. All I wanted to know is what it was like and he wouldn’t tell me.”
Edward was startled by his own nervousness. “And I told you,” he said sharply, “that it’s not something I’m fond of talking about.”
“You say that, but it makes me wonder whether any of it is even true. Do you know what I mean, lads?”
“Of course it’s true,” he said, doing his best to keep the anxious tremor from his voice.
“Leave it alone, Billy,” Joseph warned.
Edward’s palms were damp with sweat. He rubbed them against his thighs.
“I’m just saying.”
“And I’m telling you to put a sock in it.”
; Billy went on, “I’m just saying, I bet he don’t have the balls for it. You should’ve seen his face when he saw my hand on the shooter today. Thought he was going to wet himself, like it was the first time he’d seen one. A proper soldier wouldn’t never have reacted like that, Joseph, would he? I mean, he wouldn’t have nearly shit himself.”
Billy started to laugh, looking around at the others in the expectation that they would join in. It choked in his throat as he saw that Joseph was staring grimly at him. “I’ve already told you once––that’s enough.”
“But he––”
Joseph spoke harshly. “Shut it, Billy. If you’re so interested in what it was like you should’ve signed up rather than ducking out.” Joseph’s voice was clipped, as if he was a teacher chastising a naughty child. Billy’s cheeks flushed and he looked down at his empty plate.
“Bubble’s jealous of you,” Jack explained to Edward. “He likes to think he’d make a grand soldier but he didn’t have the bottle to go out and actually get shot at.”
“Piss off, you Scotch twat,” Billy spat out. “I’ve got more bottle in my little finger than you’ll ever have.”
They all laughed at the sudden vehemence. Edward knew he should have let it go. He saw that Billy had reacted badly to being chided, and prodding at him further could only make things worse. But he had suffered his jibes and taunts all day. The others were laughing at him and he couldn’t resist the opportunity to laugh along with them. Billy deserved it. He could see that Jack’s comment had found its mark and probed a little further. “You must have been eligible to go, Billy? You’re a young man. There’s nothing wrong with you, is there? Not psychologically, I mean––well, it’s obvious you’re not the full ticket––but medically, I mean. You look fit. How did you get out of it?”
“That’s where you’re wrong, see,” he muttered, not looking at him. “I’m not well.”